Hundreds of volunteers continue to show up every day, digging into the gritty cleanup as if Staten Island were their own neighborhood.

CHRISTINA TATU

Hundreds of volunteers continue to show up every day, digging into the gritty cleanup as if Staten Island were their own neighborhood.

"It's just an outpouring of love, not just from Staten Island, but from all over," Staten Islander Ken McIntyre said.

There was one man from Minnesota who set up a large barbecue pit on Greeley Avenue and for several days prepared fresh chicken dinners for volunteers and residents.

There was a Mennonite church group from Lancaster who showed up the day after Hurricane Sandy and went door-to-door pumping out residents' basements.

And then there were the 30 volunteers from Innovation Church in Paradise Township who mobilized to help.

On Nov. 17, they traveled to the Midland Beach section of Staten Island and Howard Beach in New York — two areas that bore the brunt of Sandy's winds and flood waters.

Pocono church members distributed 88 knapsacks filled with supplies to storm victims. They also helped clean out storm-damaged homes.

"Not only did we get to help people, but we heard such heartbreaking stories about how they lost everything," said Church Missions Pastor Cathy Prichard.

The trip was organized with the help of the Oasis Christian Center in Staten Island, which is serving as a collection point for donations and volunteer services.

"Staten Island thinks they are forgotten, and they are not," Prichard said, addressing volunteers who had gathered in a circle to pray before leaving in a caravan.

"We know this is going to be such a blessing to people who don't have anything," Prichard said.

She warned volunteers they faced an emotional day ahead.

Helping out seemed like the right thing to do, especially when the destruction was so close to home, said Monroe County resident and Innovation Church volunteer Melissa Lopez.

"It's a little odd to knock on people's doors. It's just different," she said, as she and other volunteers waited to receive heavy cotton gloves and blue surgical masks to protect them from the dirt and mold left behind by the flood waters.

The cleanup was her first time volunteering.

"It's one of those things where you are watching it on TV as it's going on. To see it on TV is one thing, but to actually meet the people, talk to them and feel their pain is different," she said.

Lopez's group wanted to help clean, but only a few members were allowed inside the building.

Even from the sidewalk, about eight feet from the building entrance, the sour smell of rot was obvious.

It was emanating from a downstairs apartment. A tenant abruptly left after the storm, leaving all her belongings behind, including a refrigerator full of food.

By that point, the food had been fermenting for nearly three weeks in the dark, dank basement apartment.

"It comes through your mouth. I can't explain it. It's horrible, you can taste it," said Pocono volunteer Janie Bonney, grimacing as she pulled off the thin blue surgical mask.

On the sidewalk, local volunteer Christine Scarfo waited with her young daughter.

Scarfo and her husband, Francisco Scarfo, lived in Staten Island for eight years before moving to the Poconos in 2003.

"It's horrible, just horrible to see houses that were starting to be built when we left and now they are being demolished," she said. "I hope they rebuild."

"If they came back after 9/11, they'll come back from this," Christine said.

Along nearly every street are the remnants of people's lives washed away.

A crystal punch bowl sits atop the scraps of wood, Sheetrock and waterlogged insulation filling one of the industrial-sized trash bins that are on nearly every other block.

A stuffed yellow dog lays in a puddle of dirty water in the middle of the street.

An inflatable, silver exercise ball sits out of place in the front yard of a bungalow.

Cars that haven't been opened in weeks have their windows fogged by a thick layer of condensation. Brown silt covers the dashboards and seats.

A large beachfront parking lot on Father Capodanno Boulevard has become a dumping ground. City trucks pull up continuously, emptying the garbage bins into a huge heap.

Several backhoes lumber to the top, reaching out with long necks, scooping the garbage into a manageable pile.

Staten Island officials hope they can recycle most of the building material, which now stretches about 15 feet high and 30 feet long.

Restaurants, bodegas and stores — most of them of the mom-and-pop variety — line Midland Avenue.

Weeks after the hurricane, one of Staten Island's main drags remained closed.

Metal security grates are pulled down over darkened storefronts, and it looks like it could be months before they open again.

A few doors away from the apartment where volunteers grit their teeth and work through the rotting stench, the black, burnt out shell of a building still stands.

The fire happened nearly a month ago, on the night Hurricane Sandy blew into town, said resident Rose Leone.

The fact the damage hasn't been cleaned up is probably a good indication of the formidable work public officials have before them.

Leone lives across the street from where the fire happened.

"I thought we were going to die. We were looking out the windows and then there was this fire," she said.

Leone is lucky enough to live in an upper floor apartment and did not lose any of her belongings, but she's been without gas, power and water for weeks.

The landlord of the apartment, where she has lived for three years, says it could be up to three months before it's turned back on.

When it starts to get too cold to manage without the heat, Leone says she will go to a shelter.

In the meantime, Leone has been living off the donations of volunteers.

Every day she stops at one of the various "stations" set up on almost every block that provides food, clothing, toiletries and other supplies.

On Lincoln Avenue, more than a half-mile from the beach, Dee Syvertsen dries pictures of her children on a table in her front yard.

Her five daughters, now grown and living on their own, smile in front of the blue backdrop of their high school portraits.

"We've lived here for 30 years, and there has never, never, never been anything like it," she said. "We lost everything, but we have our lives."

Syvertsen, a grandmother of nine, says the kids frequently visit. She was glad none of them were visiting during the storm.

She and her husband, Charles Syvertsen, a retired tug boat captain, decided to stay.

"We never had to leave with all the other storms we had," she explained.

Borough officials advised residents to evacuate during Hurricane Irene, but the worst Irene brought was a few snapped trees and utility poles.

It was around 6 p.m. on Oct. 29 when the tide began rolling in.

Charles Syvertsen was outside when he saw the first wave coming down the street.

"When he saw it, he said, 'Everyone get out! Get out now!'" Dee Syvertsen said.

She had only enough time to carry the couple's two dogs to the truck.

Her husband grabbed a file cabinet.

Within the span of about 20 minutes, the water rose "up to here," Dee Syvertsen said, motioning to chest-level.

They saw a blue SUV floating like a boat down the street.

The couple was able to get back to the house the day after the storm.

At that point, the water was at knee-level, but the water line in their house showed it had risen half-way up their stairs toward the second floor.

The Syvertsens have been working from early in the morning until sundown every day to get their house cleaned out.

There's still no power on the block, so "when it gets dark, it gets dark," Dee Syvertsen said.

Family friend George Calvert was helping them clean.

"It brings out the best and the worst in people," he said, recounting stories of tourists driving by to gawk at the devastation and looters who have been breaking into stores and homes to steal whatever can be salvaged.

Calvert tries to stay positive, though.

"I keep trying to look at the good aspects of this situation, and that's all the volunteers," he said.